A Weekend with Laura

A wonderful weekend with a good friend.

Working with Color

Uncooked wheat flour paste printed on transparent fabric paint

Last night, in my Exploring Surface Design class, we worked with fabric resists. I decided I wanted to try a "controlled breach" using yellow paint. This technique is something I discovered (a "happy accident") this past year while working on the Conant Grant.

After printing with the paste on wet transparent fabric paint, I let it dry. I then added a second layer of paint, this time it was violet.

After painting with the violet transparent fabric paint

After the second layer of paint dried, I heat set the paint and removed the flour paste.

Fabric after paste was removed

I've done this technique with other color combinations, but this was the first time I used yellow and violet. There were some subtle color variations but not as many as with other colors I've worked with before.

I ordered two books on color from Amazon. One arrived today, "Color Mixing Bible" by Ian Sidaway. The other book, "Skydyes" by Mickey Lawler should be here any day now. Both were recommended by students in the Potomac Fiber Arts Guild workshops I taught in January.

I'm looking forward to studying them and sharing them with my students. During my work on the Grant, I found out how tricky it can be to paint multiple transparent color washes on fabric.

End of the Lentil Story

Dried, blended lentils on fabric

Though interesting to look at, the lentil paste did not make a good resist. It was lifting and crumbling off and when painted, it breached almost completely. It's possible that a different ratio of water to lentils may yield a different result. But for now, I will be moving on...

Soup-er Bowl Sunday Continued

Cooking the lentils

Blended lentils spread on fabric 

Well what a crazy ending to the Superbowl! Back to the lentils...After soaking for 8 hours, I gave up on the first batch of lentils and decided to cook a batch instead. After cooking and adding some additional water, I blended them. They were pretty thick but there was no problem spreading them on the fabric. I will have to wait until they dry to see how they resist.

Playing in the Kitchen: Soup-er Bowl Sunday

In honor of the Super Bowl decided to try using lentils as a fabric resist. They're soaking now...will report back later...

More Salt and Glue

I finally finished the re-crystallized salt and blue glue gel piece (see October 30, 2011 blog entry) so I thought I’d share the results. I added another layer of blue glue using freezer paper stencils. Then, of course, to experiment, I had to throw a bit of table salt into the wet glue. After removing the stencils and letting the glue dry, I added another color wash and…of course…more salt!

Fresh Start

It’s Groundhog Day and like Punxsutawny Phil, I’m emerging… from a month of weekend workshops. It’s time to get back into the swing of this blog. This past month included the Power Point presentation for my grant project on kitchen resists along with two 2-day workshops. All were very successful, I’m pleased to report. I’m even more “psyched” to get back in the studio and get onto more resist explorations. But first is the big “dig out”, as I’ve written on my calendar. Time to sort through the piles in the studio, get organized…and clean the house (ugh!). It’s also time to clean up this blog. My two blog “angels”, Lesley Riley and Jennifer Coyne Qudeen have been making helpful suggestions and I am now on it! This blog will have a slightly new look with more of an emphasis on my work with resists. Starting with today…a bit of spring…blue glue gel resist with washes of Setacolor Transparent fabric paint and stenciled and printed with Setacolor Opaque fabric paint. Can you figure out the order of the layers? (Hint: The layer that “pops” is actually NOT the top layer.)